


'Nam fic

by hutchynstarsk



Category: Starsky and Hutch - Fandom
Genre: AU, Gen, Helicopters, Vietnam, War, meeting fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hutchynstarsk/pseuds/hutchynstarsk





	'Nam fic

Well, I wrote it! On the Starsky_Hutch LJ site, I posted a challenge for someone to write this story about **"Protective-Starsky hijacking a Huey so he can get a buddy back to base."** I also wanted Hutch to be the pilot. ;)

I asked last May, and no one wrote it, but I finally have! :D

Here is my result:

Nam Fic  
890 words  
gen, pg  
AU (because canon Hutch was never in 'Nam)

 

 

 

Jungle vegetation lashed from the force of my helicopter’s blades.

The men waiting for pickup in the clearing looked like toys below. I could already see there were too many of ‘em. I’d used up a lot of fuel coming this far.

I brought my chopper down in a little clearing. The five men ran over to me, carrying their comrade in a stretcher. He looked like he was hurt bad—almost past feeling it.

I said, “Leave him. I don’t have enough fuel to take you all.”

A frantic guy with dark hair pulled a gun. His blue eyes were scary-serious. “You’ll take us all.”

I said, “I mean it. You all want to die?”

His gun didn’t waver.

I tried reason. “We’re losing fuel waiting here. I’m practically on fumes already. Half of you stay here, then, and I’ll come back for you.”

“After you refuel? No. We’ll be dead by then. They’re closing in.” His hand tightened on the gun. “We’re all going, or none of us.”

You can never tell with these wild-eyed types. He might do it. I was trying to save as many lives as possible, but he’d rather risk them all than leave someone behind.

It was out of my hands now. They’d been piling in, careful with the wounded guy, while this soldier kept his gun on me. Now he piled in and I lifted off. It was heavy—hard going, and my fuel gauge read dangerously low.

I might feel the same if it was my wounded buddy, but you can’t argue with facts. “If we die—”

“Save it and fly,” said the soldier, putting his gun away, moving back to his injured friend.

After that, I needed all my attention for the chopper.

I’m surprised my hair didn’t turn white. That flight had to take a few years off my life. By the end, the fuel gauge read zero.

But somehow, I made it. I landed.

Paramedics ran out to us. The soldiers hopped off and gave their wounded friend to the experts.

For the first time, I saw the wounded man was black. Tall and cadaverously thin. He wasn’t conscious. The guy who’d pulled the gun on me held his hand, running alongside till the medics shooed him away.

The soldier stood there looking as though he didn’t know what to do.

I turned the engine off and just sat there for a minute, drained and tired.

Then I got out.

I walked over to the soldier. He was trying to smoke. His hands shook too hard to light a match. I pulled out my silver lighter, the one with my college logo on it. I held a flame up, steady. A pilot has to have steady hands.

His eyes focused on the logo, and then he looked up at me, surprised.

“I wanted to fly,” I said simply, and didn’t try to explain the rest of the ambivalent way I felt. I got to fly, yes—but with these merchants of death. And my hands were none too clean, when I’d had to become the guy who says you have to leave someone behind.

The soldier took a shaky smoke. “You gonna turn me in?”

I shrugged, snapped my lighter shut. “You gonna do it again?”

“I could say no, but if my buddy was hurt again—” His voice cracked. “We signed up together. He can’t— He hasta—”

“He’ll be fine,” I said. “Thanks to you.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I won’t say anything. He’ll recover. In a few months, you’ll envy him his ticket home.”

“You didn’t see how bad he got hit.”

“If it was me, I wouldn’t dare die with you rooting for me.” I thought, Must be nice, having a friend who will do anything to protect you. Then I thought, What am I thinking? This guy pulled a gun on me.

He finished his smoke, still shaky.

I walked back to my chopper, to see it got a proper refill and to go over my check lists.

When I looked back, he was gone. I realized I hadn't even asked the soldier's name, or his friend's. I'd probably never see either one of them again, that drama lost amongst all the others I'd witnessed and been part of.

But I kind of felt like I’d learned something from him, anyway.

Let me put it this way. I started out full of hopes, thinking I could do anything, save everyone, and I'd ended up feeling like I understood the phrase "I am become Death."

I had rescued civilians, pulled the injured from certain death--and helped deliver other, also certain death to men on the ground.

I had made the tough decisions to leave behind those who would not survive, in the hopes of saving the lives of those who might. Except today, that decision had been taken away from me, and we'd all made it, anyway.

I didn't want to be Death anymore. I wanted to be like this guy, who'd never give up.

I found myself hoping my words were true, that this guy's friend would survive.

I kind of missed that blue-eyed soldier, who would risk anything to rescue his friend, who would never give up.

It must be amazing to have a friend like that.

 

<<<>>>


End file.
